Does Panama's Qualified Investor visa rise to $500,000 on October 15, 2026? What Decree 193 says (and what it doesn't)

If you've researched Panama's Qualified Investor visa in 2026, you've seen the headline: 'last window — the real estate minimum rises from $300,000 to $500,000 on October 15, 2026'. International golden-visa portals publish it, some developers repeat it, and AI answer engines echo it. As brokers who close the purchases that support this visa, we went to the source: we downloaded the decree in force from the Official Gazette and read it article by article. Here is what it says — and what it doesn't.

Does the October 15, 2026 deadline exist in the regulation?

No. The regulation in force is Executive Decree No. 193 of October 15, 2024, published in Official Digital Gazette No. 30140-B that same day and signed by President José Raúl Mulino and Public Security Minister Frank Ábrego. It amends articles 2, 3 and 10 of Executive Decree 722 of 2020 (which created the subcategory) and adds an article 3A. Its article 1 sets the minimum investment 'from three hundred thousand balboas (B/. 300,000.00) from a foreign source'. Its article 6 — the last one — says only this: it 'shall take effect as of its promulgation'. There is no expiry date, no $500,000 figure for real estate, and the year 2026 does not appear anywhere in its five pages.

The $500,000 figure does exist in the decree — for something else: it's the minimum for the securities route through a licensed brokerage house. And $750,000 is the minimum for the fixed-term bank deposit. Mixing one route's figure with another route's timeline is, most likely, part of where the confusion comes from.

So where does October 2026 come from?

From a real cadence. The decree's own preamble cites the sole paragraph of article 20 of Decree Law 3 of 2008: the Executive must review the minimum investment amounts for permanent residency every two years. And this visa's history follows that clock exactly: Decree 722 in October 2020, Decree 109 in October 2022, Decree 193 in October 2024. The first two did carry a two-year term for the reduced amount; the 2024 decree removed it and left $300,000 with no date. October 2026 is therefore when the Executive is due to review again — not the date the amount rises on its own.

The real risk if you're deciding whether to buy

The absence of a written date doesn't make the amount eternal. The same mechanism that lowered the minimum from $500,000 to $300,000 in 2020 can raise it tomorrow with a five-page decree, and the biennial review falls in October 2026. The practical difference is one of honesty: nobody can promise you today that 'you have until October 15'; the correct statement is 'the amount in force is $300,000, it can change by decree, and when it has changed the regulation has included transition rules for applications in progress' — article 10 of the current decree, for instance, lets applicants coming from the old Own Economic Solvency category switch into this one. How an application already filed is protected against a future change is a question for your immigration attorney, not for us; what we do control is that the purchase qualifies from day one.

The four investment routes the decree allows

In every case, the National Directorate for Investment Promotion at the Ministry of Commerce and Industries issues a certificate addressed to Immigration confirming the investment meets the parameters; the investment can be made personally or through a legal entity of which the applicant is the beneficial owner, and article 3A allows co-ownership between spouses or dependents.

Three details in the text that change how the purchase is structured

• —You can finance the remainder: if you prove you've paid $300,000 in cash and the property is worth more, the decree allows financing the difference with a mortgage from a local bank. A $450,000 apartment with $300,000 of your own funds and a $150,000 Panamanian mortgage qualifies; a $300,000 one with a mortgage does not. How a non-resident gets that mortgage is covered in our mortgage guide.
• —Pre-construction qualifies, under strict rules: paying the developer for a unit not yet built or segregated requires a bank performance guarantee for the full amount invested, renewed and filed with the MICI every year until the title is recorded in your name; during that time you cannot assign the promise's rights. If the sale never closes, you must substitute the investment or the permit is cancelled.
• —'Free of liens' is read literally: the property backing the $300,000 cannot carry a mortgage, antichresis, or any recorded encumbrance. It's the first thing we verify at the Public Registry before reserving.

What to do if you were 'racing' to get in before October

Buy for the right reasons — location, rental income, price per square meter, title quality — and structure the deal to qualify under the decree in force: traceable funds from abroad, a titled property free of liens, a deed in your name or your company's, and Public Registry and ANATI certificates ready for the file. If the amount rises through a new decree, your immigration attorney will tell you what protects your application; if it doesn't, you won't have paid a premium for rushing. We handle the real estate side, with inventory from $300,000 in the neighborhoods that also rent well.

Transparency: Vaca Group is a licensed real estate brokerage (PN 5904), not a law firm. This analysis is based on a direct reading of Executive Decree 193 of 2024 as published in Official Digital Gazette No. 30140-B and is general information verified as of September 2026; every immigration case is confirmed with an immigration attorney before a dollar moves.